The present invention relates generally to telecommunication systems and, more particularly, to a system and method for transmitting a message from a subscriber in one format to a predefined group of message recipients in any format, such as voice, facsimile machine, e-mail, pager, or other formats.
Communication between parties is becoming increasingly difficult to manage because groups of people who need to maintain connectivity are becoming more widely dispersed and mobile. Across any group of people, there may be multiple different preferred forms of communication. These forms of communication may interact with personal, portable, or handheld computers, wireless or wireline telephones, facsimile machines, and other personal communications devices.
Contacting a group of people using the various different forms of communication can be a time-consuming process. Also, in certain situations it may be critical that a group of people, such as parents or employees, be contacted immediately. A few examples may clarify this problem.
Suppose, for example, that a social group of fifty (50) individuals meets monthly at different locations and needs a way to contact members in the group for last minute updates and location changes. Contacting everyone by telephone could take hours, and some members may not be available by telephone.
As another example, suppose that a business needs to contact employees in a geographically-dispersed division for an emergency meeting. Suppose further that some employees are available only by mobile phone, others are only accessible via e-mail, and yet others are only accessible via facsimile machine at certain times of the day. Contacting a large group of employees in such a situation could take several hours and/or require an entire team of individuals to perform the contacting.
Another example may further clarify the need for a solution to this communications problem. Suppose that an emergency occurs at an elementary school, requiring the school to be vacated and closed immediately and all parents contacted to pick up their children. In such a situation, the school will typically use television and radio as a way to broadcast their emergency message to all parents. Parents located in the workplace or outside of the home may not hear these announcements. Most parents do, however, have alternative ways to be reached, such as through e-mail, pager, cellular phone, or other mechanisms. It could take hours, however, for all parents to be notified through these various mechanisms.
As a result, there is a need in the art to combine the broadcast features of television and radio with the personal communications methods of today""s diverse population. No conventional message system is available today that will permit such an automatic message distribution facility across a wide range of communications mechanisms. If performed on a one-to-one basis, sending the same message, such as xe2x80x9ccome pick up your child immediately,xe2x80x9d to multiple parties could be extremely time consuming.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a system and a method for sending message information from a subscriber to multiple parties in a previously defined group in a variety of formats. Various members of the group may receive the message in formats compatible with voice phones, pagers, computers, facsimile machines, etc.
Systems and methods consistent with the present invention address this need by providing a mechanism through which a subscriber can send a message to a previously defined group of individuals, thereby combining the broadcast features of radio and television with the individual communication preferences of a defined group of individuals. The systems and methods may also provide a detailed report on the status of the delivered messages for the subscriber and permit a message recipient to reply back to the subscriber.
In accordance with the purpose of this invention as embodied and broadly described herein, a method, consistent with the present invention, provides messaging services by transmitting messages to groups of message recipients. The method includes receiving a message from a subscriber in an input format; identifying the group of message recipients to receive the message; determining one or more output formats for the message for each of the message recipients in the group; converting the message from the input format to the output format(s) when the output format(s) differ from the input format; and transmitting the message to the group of message recipients in the output format(s).
In another implementation consistent with the present invention, a system sends a message from a subscriber to a group of message recipients. The system includes a group database, a group access unit, a translator, and a message transmission unit. The group database stores identifiers for groups of message recipients and indicators that identify one or more output formats corresponding to each of the message recipients. The group access unit receives a message from a subscriber in an input format, identifies one of the groups of message recipients in the group database to receive the message, and determines the one or more output formats for each of the message recipients in the identified group based on the indicators in the group database. The translator converts the message from the input format to the one or more output formats. The message transmission unit transmits the message to the identified group in the one or more output formats.
In yet another implementation consistent with the present invention, a method monitors the delivery of messages to groups of message recipients. The method includes identifying one of the groups of message recipients to receive a message; determining the message recipients in the identified group of message recipients; transmitting the message to each of the determined message recipients; monitoring a status of the transmission to each of the determined message recipients; and generating a status report based on the monitored status.
In a further implementation consistent with the present invention, a method provides messaging services. The method includes receiving messages from subscribers in multiple subscriber formats; identifying message recipients to receive each of the messages; determining recipient formats corresponding to the identified message recipients; converting each of the messages from the subscriber formats to each of the recipient formats; sending each of the messages to the identified message recipients in the recipient formats; and receiving at least one reply from at least one of the identified message recipients.